Starting a new beginning is always difficult. Graduating college and transitioning from student to the adult working class is a rather tough transition for most people, but in 2020 it has shown to be even more difficult than in previous years. Dylan Root a recent graduate from Morningside College is in his first year of teaching band at Bishop Heelan High School in Sioux City during the COVID-19 Global Pandemic.

Dylan graduated in December of 2019 with a Bachelors degree in Music Education right before the major outbreak of the corona virus in the United States.

“Graduating from Morningside I always felt like I got a quality education, and never felt under prepared until I got my first job in the midst of a global pandemic.” Dylan said.

Throughout the summer months of 2020 Dylan prepared his BHHS Crusader’s marching band show for the fall with social distanced guidelines, ordered hundreds of disposable face masks to give to his students, and tried to clean his classroom to meet the school’s COVID guidelines. This was not how he expected his first year of teaching to look, not only did he have to worry about making a good first impression on staff and students he had to be extra cautious to limit his chances of contracting the virus because he did not have to worry about just himself anymore he had 60 students he was responsible for.

“The hardest thing for me was creating a band camp at the end of the summer that followed social distanced guidelines, even though I was already pretty stressed putting together music, getting to know the kids and my way around the school, I had to make sure every student felt safe at rehearsals. The way I did that was by giving each student a mask and putting rules in place as to when they needed to wear them and conducted rehearsals on the football field rather than in the classroom. Don’t even get me started on how stressful it has been to prepare for potential online learning.” Dylan said.

So far the Crusader Marching Band has had a few home football games that they have been able to perform at this year. Instead of having the band in the stands with the rest of the student section, to allow social distancing, the band is behind the home end zone playing pep tunes during the game. Fortunately, they are still allowed to perform their show at half time for the crowd.

Morningside student, and Bishop Heelan Band assistant, Cameron Sherlock said, “I have been working with the BHHS drum line for the past couple of months, and it was definitely a different experience than what I have been used to. I require the students to use their masks at all times since their instruments do not require them to use their mouths, and have tried to really be cautious of who they interact with at rehearsal.”

Cameron is very active with the Bishop Heelan band as well as with the Morningside Band program. This year the Morningside Mustangs for the first time since starting their marching band program will not be performing a half time show. Due to COVID Morningside along with the majority of high school and college bands throughout the state of Iowa have decided to not put a show together for this marching season. Instead the bands have prepared pep tunes to play safely in the stands with the students attending the game.

“This is my last year at Morningside, as a Music Education major, and as much as this pandemic makes things difficult, I feel prepared for anything now heading into teaching next year, which I know Dylan and many other first year teachers did not get the chance to experience.” Cameron stated.

At Bishop Heelan the band program is not the only department taking extra precautions due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Sports, Academics, and the rest of the Art department have changed how they are teaching and practicing this year.

Choir director at BHHS, Gage Fenton, said, ” This is my second year teaching at Bishop Heelan and luckily myself along with the rest of the staff had to figure out online learning this past spring, and I feel better prepared now incase we have to resort back to that. Right now I am requiring masks in my classroom, that becomes difficult with singing, but I would rather sacrifice volume than to have to rehearse from the comfort of our homes again.”

So far only a handful of students in the music department at Heelan both choir and band have contracted the virus and the departments are still up and fully functioning. The Bishop Heelan Show Choir is having auditions this coming week, and the BHHS band is performing in their first marching band competition this Saturday, September 19 in Sioux Center.